30 gallon reef tank lighting

This is a discussion on 30 gallon reef tank lighting within the Coral and Reef Creatures forums, part of the Advanced Saltwater Discussion category; -->
Quote(reef aquariums need an intense amount of full spectrum in combination with actinic blue light.) How do i combine the two? Is there on ...

Quote(reef aquariums need an intense amount of full spectrum in combination with actinic blue light.) How do i combine the two? Is there on bulb that provides both, or do i need a speciel hood to accomodate two different bulbs?

There is a bulb that accomadates both, the only corals that kind of corals you would beable to get is the mushrooms. If you just have a regular tank you can buy a glass hood and they sell light fixtures for many sizes of tanks that contain both (Daylight bulb & actinic) It just depends on if you want to spend the money on that kind of light fixture.

I'm still doing research and of course still confused..... how the heck did you people learn all of this???? Not sure if we can mention brand names here or not so slap my hand if we are not supposed to. I am planning on buying a 115 gal that is 48" long and 35" high. I don't want to buy lights and then find out I am limited to what I can/should put in the tank. Because it is so high---do you recommend MH lights? I saw a pretty cool deal at aquarium-supply.biz that looked like a combo.. It had 2 MH lights, 4 "other" lights (pardon my ignorance here--2 were blue and it looked like 2 were purple). They were OuterOrbit brand and they had little 'legs' that clipped to the tank so that there was some distance from the lights to the water. This setup looked pretty good to me but would like to know what you think of this sort of set up for a 35" high tank.

Quote(the only corals that kind of corals you would beable to get is the mushrooms)O.K this reely did not answer my question.Im not sure what a actinic bulb does? You mentioned having a glass hood with light fixtures hanging above? This sounds a little extreme for me. With a glass hood you wood see all the condensed water and salt creep on the hood and i wood have a massive light fixture above my aquarium. Cant i just buy one speicial fluresent bulb that will fit the average hood?

Yes, Many, if not most aquarium corals contain within their tissue the symbiotic algae called zooxanthellae. It is these zooxanthellae that require light to perform photosynthesis and in turn produce simple sugars that the corals utilize for food. Therefore, the simple answer to light is to provide enough to maintain a thriving population of zooxanthellae in a corals tissue. In practice however, this can prove to be a very complex issue. If you don't provide the proper lighting needs the corals will became bleached. If that happens you can save them, but the chances of survival is low.

I don't know if this is a dead topic but as I didn't see anyone just jump and out say what you should think about getting, for a 30cube that might be used for anything I'd recommend one 250W MHQIDE pendent with a 14K Pheonix bulb if not supplementing with another source of actinic be it PC or T5. You would be able to grow all the SPS your little heart could ever desire. You could grow out any nice clam or anemone you wish. Currently I'm running, 13.3 w per gallon over my 75g. I'd shoot for around 200w or so of PC lighting to really bring out Zoas and Shrooms if you go that route. the nice thing about PC bulbs and softie/LPS tanks is that it is very eay to set up different bulb combinations to find the one that works best. 2 10K grow bulbs and 2 dual spectrum actinics or 20K's would be a nice set up. 4 cords and you could do a number with your timers and adjust the brightness all day long.